16448: Batay Ouvriye: Re: 16442: Bellegarde-Smith: In Haiti: Third Assembly of Caribbean People (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Batay Ouvriye <batayouvriye@hotmail.com>

[Address to the population of Cap-Haitian at the occasion of the APC opening
on Wednesday, August 20th, 2003].


People of Cap-Haitian,


As we work in our factories, our workshops, at the marketplace, in homes, in
the streets. an event is happening in the city. An assembly organized in the
name of the people of the Caribbean: the "Peoples' Assembly of the
 Caribbean" (PAC). But we, people of Cap-Haitian, do we feel directly
concerned by this meeting, do we know exactly what is being discussed, what
is being settled in this meeting, and if so, are we sure we sent delegates
to this meeting?

Last year, some comrades already participating in preparing this year's PAC
meeting requested we take part amongst the various organizations setting up
the Peoples' Assembly of the Caribbean.  We did this considering the
comrades' claim that they had contacted us so we could have a contribution
in conveying to the PAC an orientation truly centered on the real interests
of the popular masses, the workers, the dominated countries. On this basis
and on that which withholds that we be present as long as we are on a
fighting terrain where the interests of the exploited workers is present,
without illusion, we participated. Thus we convened Unions, Associations and
Committees members of the Batay Ouvriye May First Union Federation to
discuss the question and organize our representation. In this way, six of
our delegates began to participate. Other comrades kept their distance,
asking how it was possible that we were collaborating with certain people.
We say clearly we weren't collaborating, we were struggling!

After a certain time in which we participate in commissions, general
assembly and fought various opportunistic or collaborationist, reactionary
orientations, and where open and hidden maneuvers blocked all advancement on
a democratic functioning, we pulled out and stated this clearly for all. In
short, we said:

  a.. There was no real democratic functioning. [When some top-ranking
participants realized that from the general assembly, consequent
orientations they were contrary to them could pass, they set up new
commissions from above, with people they controlled. In this way, despite
the fact that major battles had been waged to impulse consequent
orientations, the directory eliminated all assembly debates and passed their
positions without any consultation or wide approval.]
  b.. They were for collaboration with the Haitian bourgeois;
  c.. They were for organizing an event with government input;
  d.. They were for organizing an event linked with the official 2004
commemoration;
  e.. They were for organizing an event in which formalness and the
folkloric-cultural were dominant and where big resolutions would follow
intellectual debates;
  f.. They upheld holding the event in a big hotel, just like the ruling
class and government practices.


Major battles were waged against all of this. Contradictory positions shook
the assembly. But, due to the maneuvers of the new commission, all of these
positions returned even more firmly even after in talk they claimed to have
changed. We followed the situation during a few weeks. We examined concrete
practices in which they attempted to organize events with the input of the
bourgeoisie of Cap-Haitian. Faced with the impossibility of struggle on this
territory, we drew out. And clearly showed we wouldn't participate in
opportunistic, collaborationist events of this sort. We won't participate in
demagogical practices. Yes, demagogical, when collaboration with the
bourgeois is engaged at the same time as they slip into their documents a
supposed "anti-capitalism"!

Despite all of this, we believe that a practice confronting the problem of
the Caribbean popular masses within the context of globalization is of great
importance. But who is posing it? In whose name? In what orientation? In
what line? For us, that which is taking place here is no assembly of the
Caribbean people. We can just look at the composition of the Haitian
presence. Not only aren't the popular masses largely aware of the event, but
there aren't any worker organizations truly bringing their weight on the
basis of workers' interests. It's in their name that some people are
talking. In the same way, there is no real insertion of the event in the
popular struggles, the workers' struggles directly and at various levels.
They had no taste, nor intent of working in this intention. Quite the
contrary, they completely sapped this orientation.

The activity's content remains in the logic of all activities organized by
the petty bourgeoisie in Haiti and internationally. Perspectives are
unclear. When they try to precise them, they fall into demagogy: competing
with the other "social contract" the bourgeois here is pushing, they too
declare the assembly is to "open up on a new country" and with their Bois
Caiman craze, even talk of "uprising"!... While they are dancing with the
major reactionaries of the country!

At the international level too, the problems are not different. It's always,
basically, bourgeois organizations speaking for the masses. We must not
forget, in line with the petty bourgeoisie's failure, that it was precisely
this functioning that led us to the Lavalas catastrophe.

We, of Batay Ouvriye, believe there must be solidarity amongst the people of
the Caribbean and our struggles must be correctly coordinated. But, for us,
this solidarity and coordination has to be built from within the peoples'
struggles, from below. Furthermore, we have to build it starting from
workers' interests, and their interests at short, medium and long term: it
is they who carry the country on their backs, it is they who truly represent
the future. And, in this, waged labor must indeed play its historical role.



FORWARD THE STRUGGLE OF THE CARIBBEAN POPULAR MASSES

WITH THE WORKERS AS CENTERPOST, UNDER WAGE LABOR DIRECTION!



August 18, 2003